The Wolf Among Us

It's Telltale, and you have a feeling about that. This game will not change that. The QTE are not bad, dialogue is on a countdown, where other characters usually talk more the longer you take, but the default answer triggers if you let the countdown finish. Oh, and not all countdowns are equal.

I love the art overall, there's plenty to nitpick, but it is consistent and fitting. Story is pretty good overall, and the game pretty much stays in its lane. By that I mean you start off in a detective story, and you don't end up fighting a dragon for the McGuffin of Time and Space.

Dialogues feature strong language at least every other line, and that gets old quick. There's a pleasing variety of personalities otherwise, although the characters are mostly fringe-of-society types, criminals, and officials. But, I had reactions to people, cared about their side stories, and that's a plus.

I played this over a week, one episode a night, and they each take about 90mins. I've gone through as the boy-scout, so I'll play again as the rage-monster, and then maybe a third time as the silent-tough guy.

If you like the idea of a fairy-tale in the real world detective, and enjoy choice & consequences, and don't hate Telltale games, then it's certainly worth checking out.

Crysis

If I hadn't spent so much time playing Modern Warfare 2 all those years ago, this would probably be my favourite FPS, absolutely great game, though a few minor bugs, and I did get annoyed when you get told to kill 2 tanks and they don't tell you how or tell you the location of a weapon that can take them out.

Full Throttle

So I finally have a laptop with a disc drive, and I took advantage of it by being impatient waiting for the remastered version to come out and brought the original for £3 on Ebay. Full Throttle sees you play as Ben, leader of the motorcycle gang the pole cats, as you try and stop an evil businessman turning the last motorcycle manufacturer on the planet into a manufacturer of minivans. It's got all the makings of a Lucasart Point and Click, solving puzzles using obscure methods. It also probably has the best soundtrack of any point and click I know of. A few negatives, the big one being 'Why the hell isn't this available on GOG!', the other being the amount of times I got stuck by not being able to find the items needed to continue, this was most frustrating at the very end as the item you need requires you to move slightly to the left so that the screen can pan over the item, which was the only point I checked a guide.

I don't know why I didn't discover the Scumm VM sooner, I later plan to also play: Curse of Monkey Island, Neverhood and Cruise for a Copse.

<span class="bold">Dreamweb</span> (*I played the game via ScummVM on my Mac)

This game is a cyberpunk point-and-click adventure from 1994 (now Freeware), it reminded me a lot of Bladerunner (the movie), maybe it was all that rain and violence. The overall tone of the game is very dark.

It has nice graphics (except character walking animation, which looks like an amoeba), but the top-down perspective can often make it hard to determine how high things are or what exactly you are looking at.

It is possible to die and to miss critical items (although they are mostly fairly obvious), so keep multiple saves and save often!

Overall it’s a very fun game, and not too long. I’d certainly recommend it!

Finished for the first time ever Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

I pretty much agree with Super Bunnyhop on this game (he did a review a while back): great gameplay and great art coupled with level design that's horribly aged and RPG elements that are completely unneeded and pretty much break the game.

There were at least 3 spots along the way playing the game where I could easily farm a lot of levels and that broke the difficulty progression flow (not that this flow is particularly well made, because it isn't); combine that with Crissaegrim, the best sword in the game, and you've got a lot of bosses dying under 10 seconds, Death and Dracula included.

One way or another, the game was worth it.

<span class="bold">Tick&rsquo;s Tales: Up All Knight</span>

This is a humorous point-and-click adventure game, you play as Tick on his quest to become a knight and impress Georgia McGorgeous.

The graphics are a bit crude (and I don’t mean because it’s pixel art, there’s good pixel art and there’s bad pixel art). The humour I found to be mildly amusing for the most part, nothing too outstanding but competent with some high points. The puzzles are fairly easy and logical. The game itself is also fairly short and can be completed in a few hours (or less).

Overall I’d rate is as “OK”, if you’re a fan of funny point-and-clicks I’d say it’s worth a play.

Brothers, a tale of two sons
I bought this game five hours ago. Since then I prepared lunch for myself, fed the dogs, watched an episode of Star Trek on Netflix and, of course, finished this game. Saying that it's short is an understatement. It's three hours long at most. It's also very easy, too easy if you want my honest opinion. There was never a time when I didn't know where to go and what to do to advance.
The graphics and music are both nice and well made, but the characters communicate with each other in an obviously fake, and minimalistic, language which just sounds unbelievable and out of place. The controls are awkward and gimmicky, but you can get used to it, once the game is almost over.
There are a few interesting sections and the fairy-tale vibe was also rather well made. Unfortunately, the story is nothing special and the way they linger on it at the end is nothing short of being manipulative.
If you have to play it, definitely wait for a sale and temper your expectations.
5/10

999: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors

It's a bit like playing a good Anime... that's a visual novel... and also a puzzle game.

Unusually good concept and writing for a game, it could be an anime movie. Has a little in common with the Saw movies with concepts like games of death. Stylistically it has a similar feel to Persona, gameplay wise it's a lot like Professor Layton, searching for objects and clues and completing puzzles. The puzzles are not too hard, but I found it a challenge sometimes.

Only negative really is the replay the game mechanic to see all the endings, but it doesn't really make the game any less good fortunately.

A unique and cool videogame, I would put it up there with the best classics and a must play. (Unless you don't like reading or anime or puzzles.)

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (PSP)

The sole reason I brought a PSP was to play the old Final Fantasy's, Tactics Advance 2 was one of my favourite DS games and I thought I'd decide to play the original. Then I saw the prices on Ebay and settled on the remake for PSP. This is a remake of the original Final Fantasy Tactics for the PS1, with some added features and subtle changes, such as having the game set in Ivalice, the world where Vagrant Story, FF Tactics A2 and FFXII are set. It's a turn based strategy game, and a very difficult one at that. Permadeath is a thing in this game, and it can even kill story characters preventing certain side quests from being completed. The story is probably the best I've seen in a turn based strategy, focusing on the struggles of a commoner adopted into a noble house, who must face warring Dukes, a commoner rebellion and a group of men set on reviving an ancient demon.

Now this game is hard, there are 2 fights that are frustratingly difficult and 1 that is utter bs. The bs fight having you fight a guy 1 v 1 who can kill you in two hits, then there's a second part to the fight when he becomes immensely more powerful. What I found even more infuriating is shortly after this fight you gain a new team member who is actually capable of soloing the end boss without you needing to grind him, once you get him the game becomes incredibly easy. Other infuriating things is the amount of times enemies break your armour, and that there are some fights that require you to do up to 7 battles in a row, and if you didn't make a save before then and you can't beat 1, you've pretty much screwed yourself. I also have some beef with the sound effects, when someone dies in a cutscene, the sound effect is someone making a low note with a trumpet, and it sounds absolutely ridiculous, this really happy music also plays near the end as some text tells you how your friend gets burnt alive at the stake. Finally the last of my annoying bits: the asshole, the guy in the game who betrays everybody and dreams of power. He gets everything he wants, there is no karma in this game and it really frustrates me how the protagonist just lets him get away with kidnapping women and starting wars, because they used to be friends.

Anyway, enough about that. This was a great game, I highly recommend it and I applaud you if you can complete it without looking at a guide (I had to for the BS fight and again because I thought, there must be an alternative ending. Right? He can't get away with that!). If you don't own a PSP you can get it on Ipad, something I learnt after shelling out for a PSP when I already owned an Ipad.

finished Siege of Dragonspear

I don't get all the hate and bad reviews. It was a wonderful game, much more fleshed out than BG1 itself. The story is linear, that's less fun than BG1 was, but there's so many things going on, NPC's have more things to say than in BG1, almost all of it is voiced. The story is a side-track from the main storyline for a large part, still there's lots of foreshadowing of the events in BG2: Shadows of Amn. It fills in a lot of details to the motivations of the main protagonist in Shadows of Amn and fills in the gaps of how it is you end up captured in the starting dungeon of BG2 and why it is 'you left Baldur's Gate under dark circumstances' as the opening narrative of Shadows of Amn goes.

The game is full of special items, a bit too full, but the plus side of it is, you have a progress in power even though your level progression is only 1 or 2 more levels to be had from where BG1 ended, making the main character not TOO overpowered in Shadows of Amn as when starting there [SPOILER about start of Shadows of Amn] only his or her experience remains, but you don't get too take all gear with you.

The only thing I liked less, is the new art style. To avoid the models being pixelated (the original models from the design of BG was lost and Beamdog had to make do with the ingame sprites of the old BG1 when enhancing the engine), Beamdog chose for a blurry outlook that in my opinion, makes it look even worse.

Finally, all the fuss about the transgender character Mizhena is 'much ado about nothing'. She has only 1 line about it, the sub-quest she's involved in is not even related to her gender. Edwin's sex change in BG2 got much more attention and never got such a reaction. There's too much over-sensitivity on the part of the haters of diversity.

FInished ABZU. Not much to do in the game but the visuals are gorgeous and the music relaxing.

Full list here.

So, I finally finished Enslaved: Odyssey to the West which I first got back in 2013 for my PS3. Even though I instantly fell in love with the game back then and had no serious issues with any aspect of it I just couldn't get myself to finish it. So, I finally just grabbed the disc from the shelf and played it from start to finish this time.

The game isn't without flaws and the gameplay doesn't have that much to offer but darn it, in terms of content, presentation and atmosphere it's easily one of the best games I've ever played. I would have enjoyed a longer epilogue that documents' the heroes - or entire world's - fate after the events in the game a bit more but still, I can't say that I was let down by the ending.

My main gripes were definitely that the platforming is utterly trivial, not even allowing for any missteps and rarely requiring good timing, and that the combat, while decent, doesn't really evolve as the game progresses. And the fact that the mindblowing vistas from the early stages in the game are later replaced with a far less (but still) impressive industrial setting. That doesn't change the fact, though, that it's visually one of the most stunning games ever made. There are few games that can get me to take a break and just look in awe at the virtual world around me and Enslaved achieved this every couple of minutes.

And in terms of writing and acting it's easily one of the best games I have ever played. The protagonists are just extremely well-written likeable and believable characters. Particularly Monkey, the playable character, manages to avoid falling perfectly into the archetype you instantly expect him to represent, largely thanks to little nuances in the writing and perfect delivery by Andy Serkis (including fantastic facial animations). The characters don't really develop but their relationship does in the most beautiful of manners. It's just an utter shame that there's no sequel.

Just finished my second playthrough of Aztaka.
First time was way back when it was released in 2009. Still one of my favourite indie RPGs/Metroidvanias. Unforgettable setting and incredible hand-drawn level art.

I always thought it looked interesting, but up until now I've only ever read from people who deemed it rather forgettable and not that good, never from someone who actually played it twice. That's encouraging me not to write it off completely and to give it another try some day, thanks! :)

Sort of finished the Star Trek: 25th Anniversary game. Well ... I gave up after 50 or so attempts at the final battle.
I'm always destroyed within 20 seconds no matter what strategy I use. My patience is long gone.
So technically I didn't finish the game, but psychologically I feel like I did since I'm just one short battle away.

My opinion of the game is mixed: the voice-acting was awesome and I liked the Adventure side of the game.
What I did not like was the combat and that a couple of the puzzles felt completely obscure to me.

On the whole I'd rate the game 3/5 or 4/5. I'm certainly glad I finally got to play the game after these many years.